How Do We Love Outsiders?
What is a church for? What is supposed to happen in all of the church’s youth programs, worship services, Bible studies, and small groups? How are you supposed to feel, and what are you supposed to do, as part of a church?
Maybe the answers to those questions are obvious to you. But throughout history, churches have answered those questions in at least four different ways. We can compare these four alternatives to what we find in God’s Word about what the church should do for people outside its walls and also for the people inside. Some of these answers will overlap; they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive. Yet churches typically emphasize just one of these aspects of the relationship between insiders and outsiders.
First, some believe that church is for evangelism. Church aims to get people inside a building on Sunday morning so they can hear the good news about Jesus and be converted. Preaching and teaching stay focused on the basics: our problem with sin, the sacrifice of Jesus, and the necessity of belief. Worship services tend to cycle through standard series on relationships, parenting, finances, pop culture, and other topics that connect with outsiders. The teacher aims to connect these life situations to our need for Jesus.
Second, some believe that church is for good works. Church aims to mobilize the people inside to help people on the outside in tangible ways. These churches operate soup kitchens and second-hand clothing stores. They run job programs for ex-convicts and English language classes for immigrants and refugees. Preaching and teaching emphasize Jesus’s good works and his commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Leaders exhort the insiders to work and vote for change that will benefit the less fortunate outside. Worship services feature announcements about work days and the need for volunteers. They also highlight reports of outsiders whose lives have been helped by insiders.
Third, some believe that church is for healing. Church aims to show outsiders that life gets better when they come inside the church. Preaching and teaching stress the miracles of Jesus and the power of the Spirit, and how he gives us the same means to heal people of their physical, spiritual, financial, and mental suffering today. Sermons stress that insiders can overcome any challenge with the help of God. Worship services feature uplifting music and bodily responses to the Spirit’s moving. Some services might concentrate almost exclusively on prayer for immediate healing.
Fourth, some believe that church is for dispensing grace. Church aims to give insiders the forgiveness they cannot receive apart from the church. Preaching and teaching focus on the church’s role as mediator between humans and God. Worship services culminate with insiders receiving from the leader the body and blood of Christ as bread and wine. An outsider to this particular congregation might be an insider at a different congregation but will recognize many similarities no matter which service he or she attends in this kind of church.
Perhaps you recognize your current church in one of these scenarios. You might see some of two or three churches that you know. Or maybe you’re so new to church that they’re all equally unfamiliar! You might visit one church as an outsider and feel as if everything has been planned just for your benefit. In another church, no one may even notice you. In this article, then, we aim to help you rediscover church by exploring what the Bible teaches about the purpose of church and how insiders and outsiders should relate.
Great Commission
We start with the final words of Jesus to his disciples before he ascended to heaven, after his resurrection:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18–20)
Jesus bookended this parting message by explaining himself. All authority belongs to him, so his command is binding. The disciples did not have the authority to do whatever they wanted. Jesus had promised that he would build his church. Only he has the proper authority. Jesus also promised that no matter what might befall his disciples, he would be with them. But not just to the end of their lives. This promise and command apply to all disciples to come, to the end of the age.
Considering Jesus gave these words before he ascended into heaven, his commitment must have comforted the disciples, who had little idea what lay in store for them after he left.
Jesus delivered this parting message to the ultimate insiders, the men who had walked and talked with him for years. But it’s noteworthy that here he did not say anything about them as insiders. He only commanded what they must do for outsiders. Just as he made them his disciples, they should go and make other disciples. The scope, however, has dramatically changed. Their horizon will expand far beyond the backwater of Galilee and the city of Jerusalem. Jesus sent them to “all nations.”
It’s remarkable to look back and see how they obeyed and made disciples everywhere from India to Africa to Europe.
“It’s remarkable to look back and see how they obeyed and made disciples everywhere from India to Africa to Europe.”
What, then, were these insiders supposed to do to turn outsiders into disciples of Jesus? For starters, they baptized. Churches today disagree about whether baptism follows shortly after birth or shortly after profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It’s beyond the scope of this short book to settle that dispute. Yet everyone agrees that the disciples baptized new believers in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as Jesus commanded. That means they taught outsiders about the Trinity, one God in three persons. Considering Jewish belief about one God, and Roman belief about many gods, this doctrine would have required patient, careful, extended treatment. It would not have been self-evident to the outsiders the disciples encountered, no matter where they traveled.
The last charge from Jesus encompasses just about anything you can imagine: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” We have four books of the Bible full of Jesus’s teaching. The disciples had several years with him, too. They could not have fulfilled this command by teaching only about the cross and the empty tomb, then pushing for a decision to believe. Yes, conversion makes outsiders into insiders. But the new insiders then must learn to “observe” Jesus’s teaching. And just as Jesus set an example for the disciples, so also the disciples must have taught new believers to observe them and their teaching as they followed Jesus’s commands. Again, obeying this aspect of the command we know as the Great Commission would have taken time and patience. It’s probably not the kind of thing you can accomplish only over video calls, let alone one-directional podcasts. This kind of teaching is best accomplished in person, in relationship, in dialogue—in church.
Church Today
What can we conclude, then, from the Great Commission about what church is for? How do insiders and outsiders relate? We can see that Jesus asked the first church leaders, the ultimate insiders, to undertake the business of turning outsiders into insiders through conversion. That process could start within their own homes, with their children and extended families, but it would eventually extend to strangers around the world. The church must never lose sight of this evangelistic calling. Whatever else the church does, it teaches and then models how to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Content taken from Rediscover Church by Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman, ©2021. Used by permission of Crossway.
Collin Hansen (MDiv, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) serves as vice president of content and editor in chief for the Gospel Coalition. He hosts the Gospelbound podcast and coauthored Gospelbound: Living with Resolute Hope in an Anxious Age. He serves as an elder for Redeemer Community Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and also on the advisory board of Beeson Divinity School. You can follow him on Twitter at @collinhansen.